If you wake up feeling grumpy just at the thought of going to work, chances are it’s time to move on. Your work life can make up the better part of how you spend your waking hours, and if that time is spent doing something you don’t enjoy, or actually despise, that’s a whole lot of wasted time in your life.

Staying in a job longer than your mind and body are able to manage can have dire consequences. People who were once content become antsy when work grows over time. But when there are no opportunities to be promoted, what’s a restless employee to do?

Making a lateral move by accepting an equivalent role elsewhere might be an option. Depending on the size of the organization, this move might even be made without leaving the organization.

Richardson International eases transition through communication

With its agreement to purchase Viterra assets — including grain handling, crop input and processing facilities — Winnipeg-based Richardson International has taken its rightful place on the international stage and will soon assume the title of Canada’s largest agribusiness. Richardson is a worldwide handler and merchandiser of Canadian-grown grains and oilseeds, and its wealth of expertise in agriculture, oilseed processing and food packaging has made it a global business leader and one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies.

Acrylon Plastics CEO wants managers to act as owners

Craig McIntosh readily admits that he doesn’t accept no for an answer.

“No just means you haven’t heard me clearly, so let me explain myself to you some more,” says the president and CEO of Acrylon Plastics, a Winnipeg-based manufacturer of custom plastic parts for a wide range of applications including buses, farm equipment, windows and doors, fencing, commercial buildings and residential playgrounds.

McIntosh says his proclivity to positivity is a common trait of entrepreneurs. “That’s just part of our nature. We don’t regard boundaries as absolutes but rather as obstacles to be worked around whereas many others see boundaries as absolutes and are stopped by them.”

No organization wants to have a revolving-door reputation, gaining notoriety as a place where employees tend to enter and leave quickly.

Having an alarming rate of traffic move through the office has a negative impact on all areas. Losing good people and then training replacements means productivity slows down. Without continuity, operational flow is interrupted.

Morale certainly suffers as seasoned staffers wonder who will be next to go and leave them to pick up the extra work or carry out unfinished projects, or else they avoid making meaningful connections with newcomers lest they too disappear by the end of the quarter. And once word gets out that the company has a retention issue, potential employees stay far away, deciding that the work environment must be toxic.

Studies suggest that the company that volunteers together not only stays together, but outperforms the rest.

Whether building houses, preparing hot meals or delivering hampers, volunteering as a team makes a difference in the community, but also enhances employee engagement and boosts the profile of the company. One recent report stated that 64 per cent of executives see how corporate citizenship has made a direct and positive impact on their bottom line.

It’s been said that your first job is a lot like your first love. Not only does it usually occur at a point in life when we are young, idealistic and still unaffected by cynicism, time magically smoothes over any rough, unpleasant edges so that we fondly remember only the good things about it.

Even if that first job was as menial, repetitive or altogether unpleasant as possible, there actually were plenty of things worth the misty, water-coloured memory space. Whether our bright-eyed selves realized it or not, that first foray into the working world was a valuable learning experience that laid the foundation for future career success. In fact, many of the lessons you learned back then are still subconsciously applied to the position you hold today.

Jim August relishes the opportunity to promote Winnipeg whenever and wherever he can. In fact, the CEO of The Forks North Portage Partnership has been talking up his organization’s mandate to “contribute to making Winnipeg’s downtown a better place to live, work and play,” and people around the world are taking notice.

“I’m a member of The Waterfront Center (an international, non-profit urban planning organization focused on enhancing communities’ waterfront resources), and recently did a presentation to the group on our winter river trail, with its skating and its warming huts. It blew them away, mainly because most had never seen ice on a river before,” August says with a laugh. “But they were very impressed by what Winnipeg is capable of doing despite our climate.”

Every employee is a spoke in the wheel at Bison Transport

This spring, Bison Transport became a five-time grand prize winner of the National Fleet Safety Award (an unparalleled industry achievement) and was recognized as one of the Best Fleets to Drive For by the Truckload Carriers Association. Yet, as impressive as the accolades that Bison continues to amass, the company simply views it as business as usual.